


Welcome to the Jungle

by blue_wonderer



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Animal Shelter AU, Barry adopts a menagerie of animals, Fluff, Len is salty about it, Like so much fluff guys, M/M, Mick is mostly OK with it, Other, animal adoption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 14:39:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13572684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_wonderer/pseuds/blue_wonderer
Summary: “Hell no,” Len says.“Heck yes,” Barry exclaims, from the couch, where he’s letting the gangly puppy walk all over him and,ugh,lick his face.Barry starts volunteering at an animal shelter. He lasts exactly one day before he starts bringing animals home. Mick goes along with it. Len... Protests. A lot.





	Welcome to the Jungle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tobyaudax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tobyaudax/gifts).



> For Toby's prompt: "ColdFlashWave and animal shelter!" :)

“Barry,” Len says. 

“Mm?” 

“You have a ferret.”

“Yes?” Barry looks up from where he’s posting pictures of said ferret to his Instagram. The animal is small with white and grey fur. Currently, it’s laying belly-up on Barry’s lap, fast asleep. 

“Barry,” Len says again. 

“Mm?”

“How long have you been volunteering at the shelter?” 

“It was my first day!” 

Len nods, because this is a thing he knew, he just wanted Barry to say it out loud. Worryingly, the younger man still doesn’t seem to notice the problem. 

“The animals are supposed to stay in the shelter. Or be re-homed in other homes that are not ours. We agreed. There was a contract. _You signed your name,_ Barry.” 

And cue the soppy doe eyes. 

“But the person who brought him in didn’t realize that the shelter only takes in dogs and cats. There’s nowhere else for Newt to go, Len.” 

“Newt? You named it?” Len throws his hands up because getting attached to animals Barry wasn’t supposed to bring home was _explicitly_ against the contract. Was there nothing sacred? “Barry. No.”

“But Mick is almost done with Newt’s cage!” 

Len’s eyes trail to the corner of the living room where a towering structure is, indeed, almost finished. Mick is sitting cross-legged on the floor, attaching the last panel. A bag of litter and a couple of small dishes are piled nearby. 

A tiny, ferret-sized hammock is already hung up in the cage. 

“Mick,” Len says, betrayed. 

Mick glances up, glasses sliding down his nose where he’d probably put them on to read the directions. “What?” He responds, defensive. “He’s cute.” And it’s anyone’s guess if he means the ferret or Barry. 

Len turns on his heel and storms into the bedroom, wondering just when this household turned into a lawless democracy. 

*

“No,” Len says. 

“Yes,” Barry grins. 

“Ferrets _are_ social animals,” Mick The Mutineer adds. 

“The other one already hides our shoes under the couch. And steals dish towels. And don’t think I don’t know that you guys let it into our bedroom. I can’t find any of my left socks.” 

“It’s socks,” Mick says. “They don’t have lefts and rights.” 

Len sniffs and turns his glare on Barry. “No,” he repeats. 

“But where else will Cedric go?” Barry asks. “He and Newt are already really good friends.” 

Newt, the white ferret, is currently running about their feet with a slightly larger, darker ferret. They appear to be playing a weird, dancing game of chicken. 

“Barry,” Len sighs. 

Barry’s bottom lip actually _trembles_. 

“Fine.” 

*

“There’s a tank in our living room,” Len says when he walks into the kitchen just as Mick pulls a pan of cookies out of the oven.

Len reaches for one and pouts when Mick shoves his hand away and pushes a tin at him instead. Len opens it to find chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies. 

“Yeah,” Mick says. 

“There are three turtles in it.” 

“Yeah,” Mick says again. “Spongebob, Patrick, and Sandy. Spongebob is actually a girl-turtle, though. Barry didn’t want to name it Pearl.” 

*

“Mick. It’s a hedgehog.”

“Sonic,” Mick agrees. 

*

“Hell no,” Len says. 

“Heck yes,” Barry exclaims, from the couch, where he’s letting the gangly puppy walk all over him and, _ugh_ , lick his face. 

“Mick!” Len calls. 

“We’re getting the backyard fenced in,” Mick shouts from the bedroom. 

“His dad was an American Foxhound,” Barry informs Len _like he cares_. “And the mom is an English Bulldog. So, Goliath is probably going to get pretty big.” 

“Barry,” Len sighs. “We have two ferrets, three turtles, and a hedgehog. How long have you been working at the shelter now?” He asks, even though it’s a thing he already knows. 

“Two weeks.” Barry bundles up the puppy in his arms, rolls off the couch, and beams at him with his dumb, floofy hair. Temporarily stupified by the way Mick’s oversized shirt reveals part of Barry’s collarbone and shoulder, Len fails to think up a biting comment. Taking his silence as acquiescence, Barry walks up to him and kisses him gratefully on his cheek. 

* 

“What does it want, Mick?” 

Mick looks up from his tablet and tilts his head, following Len’s irritated gaze down to where Goliath is propping his chin against Len’s leg and staring up at him unblinkingly, tail gently wagging. “He just wants you to share your apple.” 

Len covetously holds his half-eaten apple closer to him, turning his upper body slightly so his shoulders are between the apple and the imploring gaze of the hairy beast. The dog just sits and keeps staring. Mick rolls his eyes. 

The dog shifts slightly, pink tongue flicking out in anticipation. Len frowns and takes a deliberate, taunting bite of the apple. 

“Christ,” Mick mutters and goes back to his tablet, ignoring them both. 

*

“Barry, this has got to stop.” 

“But look at her!” Barry begs, holding up the grey cat with the big blue eyes. “She reminds me of you!” 

“In what way?” Len asks icily. 

“Her blue eyes,” Barry says. 

“The way she knocks over things when we stop paying attention to her,” Mick adds from the floor where he’s opening the ferret cage to refill their food. 

_“What?”_ Len asks.

“Her name is Cheetara,” Barry says. 

It’s about then that Cedric, followed by Newt, creep out of their cage. Goliath, perhaps gifted with precognition, whines pitifully, but it’s too late. Cheetara spies the ferrets in short order and leaps out of Barry’s hands and toward the ferrets like a fur-lined missile of feline destruction. Any ineffectual protest Len is trying to form summarily dies as their house erupts into unmitigated chaos. 

*

“Barry,” Len says as he sprays one of the kitchen barstools again with the fire extinguisher, just to make sure the last flame is sufficiently squelched. 

“I’m sorry,” Barry says mournfully. His back is against the now-closed ferret cage and he’s holding a traumatized Goliath to his chest like he’s a human baby. Behind him, the two ferrets glare from the safety of their home at Cheetara, who is four feet away and crouched in hunting position, tail swishing ominously. Above the rabble, Spongebob, Patrick, Sandy, and Sonic look on in peerless censure. 

Mick rights the overturned recliner and picks up the TV. “It’s fine,” he says, because he’s a sucker. “We’re not going to throw them out. Just need some rules, is all.” 

_Good luck with that,_ Len thinks, a little bitterly. That’s what he’d tried to begin with. 

But he doesn’t say that. Instead, he sighs, reaches down, and helps Barry stand. He tilts Barry’s head to get a better look at the bruise forming on his cheek (diving after frightened puppies and coffee tables didn’t mix well, it’s lucky Barry wasn’t hurt worse). He ushers the younger man into the kitchen and onto the counter, where he holds a cold compress against the bruise. 

*

Cheetara wakes him up by sitting on his face. Len grumbles, pushes the stubborn cat off, and blinks blearily into the room. Barry is tucked against his chest, fingers curled into his shirt, and one leg entwined with Len’s. Mick is mostly on his stomach, arm thrown over Barry’s waist. 

Cheetara bats him on the nose. 

He huffs and gets up, barely faltering as the cat winds around and between his ankles as he walks. He lets her out the backdoor to prowl the yard and neighborhood. He turns around to big eyes gleaming up at him in the night. He sighs, reaches down, and picks Goliath up before taking him back to his bed. There he waits for Goliath to lay back down before he pets his soft head and rubs him gently behind the ears. 

After that he checks on Sonic, who is quietly stirring, and tops off his food bowl. He cleans out the ferrets’ litter. Two of the turtles are slowly meandering about the tank, so Len feeds them snacks.

His toes are cold and he’s yawning by the time he shuffles back into the bedroom. He crawls under the covers and is just turning again towards Barry when he hears a forlorn sigh from the floor. He peers over the bed and just makes out the white tip of a tail darting back and forth in the dark room. He reaches down, scoops up Goliath, and deposits the puppy between himself and Barry. 

Goliath quickly curls into a tight circle, little body already radiating heat against Len’s stomach. He burrows into the covers, leans over and kisses Barry’s eyebrow. Mick stirs with a half-voiced murmur. 

The house seems to breathe with him as he falls back asleep. 

**end.**

**Author's Note:**

> @wonderingtheblue on tumblr :)
> 
>  
> 
> Sidenote: The animal names are named after various pop culture things. Newt and Cedric are Hufflepuffs from _Harry Potter_ (Barry thinks ferrets look Close Enough to badgers, bless). Goliath is from _Gargoyles_. Cheetara is from _Thundercats_.
> 
> Sidenote 2: Some quick intervention by @hussyknee kept this from being entitled: "You Have Cat to be Kidding Me"


End file.
